YOKOHAMA is the heaviest game from OKAZU Brand to date, in terms of physical weight, and maybe in terms of complexity, too.

As mentioned in the game’s BGG entry, “In YOKOHAMA, each player is a merchant in the Meiji period, trying to gain fame from a successful business, and to do so they need to build a store, broaden their sales channels, learn a variety of techniques, and (of course) respond to trade orders from abroad.” Seems interesting!

Where to buy: At the moment, you can’t find it anywhere. But usually games from OKAZU Brand have a good distribution in Japan, so you will probably find it in the near future in Japanese store such as Sugorokuya and Amazon Japan (in the case of Amazon Japan, you may need to use a shipping forward service such as Tenso because Amazon Japan usually does not sell games abroad).

UNBOXING

As I mentioned, YOKOHAMA is a heavy game with lots of components (it also comes with a lot of plastic bags for all the components (not the modular boards)), as can be seen in the picture below.

The main components are the modular boards and management boards.

It also includes a scoring board.

Below are the wooden bits.

And the cards.

COMPONENTS

The cards are divided between Achievement, Order, Technology and Building Site cards.

Only 3 Achievement cards are used per game, and they give Victory points depending on what you achieve.

The Order cards define orderd from customers that have to be fulfilled using resources. You gain benefits by fulfilling orders.

The Technology cards give a specific advantage to a player.

Both Order and Technology cards have a Country icon that is used to gain Foreign Mercenaries.

Building Site cards are set-up in each area board. They have 4 spaces for Shophouses (some of them give benefits), and 1 space for a Trading House (which gives Victory points).

Although the components are in both Japanese and English, my version of the game came only with a Japanese manual (and another document what I think is an aid), but I was given an English manual and the BGG page also has the English manual in PDF. I’m not sure if the TGM copies and copies that will sell at retail will come with English rules.

I will need to create an aid in English in the future (maybe translating the Japanese aid).

Area boards and management boards.

SET-UP

The set-up for 2, 3 and 4 players differ mainly in the number of area boards used (they form a pyramid pattern). For 4 players, all area boards are used. For 2 and 3 players, some area boards are removed.

I will use a 2-player set-up in this example.

Before placing the Order cards, you need to remove cards from the deck from the game depending on the number of players (2 – remove 16, 3 – remove 5, 4 – remove 0).

As can be seen in the picture below, the game uses a lot of space, even in a game with 2 players. With 3 or 4, a large table is required.

BASIC FLOW

The game progresses in turns. The start player plays his turn, then in clockwise order the other players play their turns.

1 – At least one player has built his 4 Trading Houses.
2 – At least one player has built his 8 Shophouses.
3 – The Order deck is empty and there’s one empty space in the Port Order Form Board.
4 – A number (2 Players: 4; 3 Players: 5; 4 Players: 6) of Assistant pawns are placed on the Church Management Board
5 – A number (2 Players: 4; 3 Players: 5; 4 Players: 6) of Assistant pawns are placed on the Customs Man-
agement Board

When any of the above happens, the round is finished (all players play the same number of turns), and then a final round is played (all players play one more turn).

After that, there’s a final scoring.

STEP-BY-STEP PLAY

We will begin with the main action phase, I will show the Additional Action Phases in the end.

B. Main Action phase

1. Placement step – Place Assistant pawns

2. Movement step – Move President

3. Area Action step – Perform area action

The amount of Power in the area depending on the tokens the player has there.

President – 1 Power
Assistant – 1 Power each
Shophouse – 1 Power
Trading House – 1 Power
Station (from a Technology card) – 1 Power

If the sum is more than 5, it still counts as 5.

Each area has spaces that defines what can be done with the Power (some areas require more than 5, but they have options to gain more Power besides tokens).

In the optional step 4. 5-Power bonus step (Optional) – Get 5-Power token, you also get the benefit shown on the token.

4. Country bonus – Players check the Country icons in their cards and divide them into sets.
A set of 5 different Country icons → 12 Victory points
A set of 4 different Country icons → 8 Victory points
A set of 3 different Country icons → 4 Victory points
A set of 2 different Country icons → 2 Victory points

The player with most Victory points win the game! (if a tie, the one closest to the Start player).

IMPRESSIONS AND CONCLUSION

BGG mentions that the game is an economic game with the following mechanics:
Card Drafting
Grid Movement
Modular Board
Route/Network Building
Set Collection

I would say the game is also a worker placement game in some way.

Part of the game reminds me a little of of Istanbul, due to the modular board and movement.

The game rules are really simple, so it’s easy to grasp how the game works. However, the number of possible options (each area board and paths of victory) makes the game somewhat complex and even intimidating. I would say the game is a medium to heavy game because of this. I don’t think it is a game to introduce players to the hobby, but you also do not need “heavy” gamers to play.

The game flows very quickly after the first few turns. I did not feel that there was a lot of downtime because between other players turn you would think about your strategy and each turn would be fast. However, due to the options, there may be some analysis paralysis depending on the players. I did not feel this in the only game I played, but it surely can happens (it would be even worse when the game is approaching the end).

The modular boards and the number of boards means that it would be difficult to have similar setups. I think that even changing only one or two boards would change the game a lot, due to the need to change your strategy. The Order and Technology cards also enter the game in a random way, which also may change strategies. So I would say that the replay value is high.

With only one full game played, I cannot say which strategies are the best or if there’s a dominant one. We played in 3 players, and the other two went into the obvious strategy of fulfilling orders. I only fulfilled one order in the game, but focused on getting Imported Goods and using Customs (which can give lots of Victory points). I did not win, but I think this is strategy is good if played better. So, for now, I would say that the multiple paths to victory may work.

The game does have a lot of different mechanics working together, and I think they do work right. However, the only negative aspect of the game in my opinion is that it may have too many mechanics, when it would have worked in a more streamlined way with less. For example, I’m not really sure we need the Achievement cards as we use only 3 in the game. However, having those means that we can use them instead of going after Orders (which was my strategy in my first game, as mentioned). So, although it may seem that the game may have too many mechanics, they may be necessary after all.

For a conclusion, I really loved the game. I usually do with OKAZU Brand games (Minerva, one of their games from last year, was the one I’ve been playing a lot, more than any other game in my collection). I would suggest the game to anyone wanting a medium to heavy game with different mechanics. It’s also a great introduction to games from the Orient (although I would say Minerva would be a better introductions due to being mildly less complex).

I would really like to thank Hisashi and Ryoko for another great game!